


Up To London

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Dawn Before the Rest of the World [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Exhibitionism, M/M, Military Kink, Sexual Fantasy, Train Sex, sort of retirement!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: Sherlock and John travel to London to honour the Colonel's last wish. Along the way, Sherlock reveals a particular penchant, and the two consider their own final moments.





	Up To London

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, darlings! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you have given me. I cannot express my gratitude in words, so instead offer you what I can: a story I hope will warm you and make you smile.

_My Dear Mr Holmes,_

_It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you of the death of my husband, Colonel A—, early this morning. I hope you will allow me the imposition of a request that you attend the funeral two days hence, at St Polycarp Church, Knightsbridge. It was his wish that you should be the one to dress him for his final rest. He complained nearly every day that the butler here in town was in no way your peer and it would aggrieve him to have his waistcoat fitted improperly. Arrangements for your train journey and London accommodations are already made._

_Most sincerely yours,  
Mrs A—_

 

_Dear Mr Watson,_

_My husband is to be laid to rest two days hence and I wish to employ you, so that you might apply your unique talent to the floral arrangements for his funeral. Arrangements for your train journey and London accommodations are already made._

_Sincerely,  
Mrs A—_

 

Sherlock laid the letters gently on the kitchen table beside his tobacco tin and raised his pipe to his lips, sipping smoke through the stem.

“Will we go, then?” John asked.

Sherlock frowned a bit. “Of course we’ll go. If his wish was for me to dress him for burial, I can hardly refuse the request.” He tipped his head to meet John’s gaze. “Have you a suit appropriate to the occasion?”

“The one you insisted I have made up last year—is that somber enough?”

“ _Mm_ ,” Sherlock affirmed. “With a dark necktie, it will do. As you’re not a mourner, grey should suffice in place of black. Shoes?”

John considered. “Muck boots. Brown brogues.”

“You’ll wear my third-best black shoes.”

“They’ll never fit,” John protested with a mild grin, imagining the comical effect of Sherlock’s long shoes on his own much smaller feet.

“Without time to buy new, we’ll make do. A bit of newspaper in the toes will accommodate the size difference.” Sherlock’s voice had taken on a very particular cadence, and a business-like tone that filled John with affection.

Gently he replied, “Yes, Mr Holmes.”

 

After she’d cleared away their afternoon tea, Margaret perched on the edge of the sofa in the drawing room with a small notebook and pencil as Sherlock listed items to be packed.

“Watson and I will assemble our own shaving kits; you need only see to the clothing. His dark suit, and three white shirts. I will lay out two neckties for him. My black suit, three white shirts, one black necktie. We’ll need handkerchiefs, four each. Socks and garters. Small clothes. Nightclothes and dressing gowns. Slippers. His medals.”

“Mr Watson has medals?” Margaret blurted, eyes wide.

“Of course. They’re in his wooden chest in the bedroom; he will have to retrieve them for you but you must assure they make their way into his case.”

“He must have been terribly brave to be awarded medals,” Margaret mused, then added with a slight shake of her head, “I can’t imagine him at war.”

“Oh? And whyever not?”

“It’s just that he’s so gentle and kind, and I think of soldiers as being rowdy lads, quick to fight and taking up all the air in the room.” She lowered her eyes as well as her voice. “I can’t imagine Mr Watson killing anyone.”

“Assuredly he did kill as many as he had to, and bravely,” Sherlock half-scolded, leaping quick and sharp to the defense of John’s soldierly honour. He pointed the stem of his pipe at her. “Margaret, this is a line of thought best kept quiet in your own head. Certainly you will never speak of it to Mr Watson, and risk insulting him.”

“What am I to be insulted about?” John asked lightly, passing through on his way out to the vegetable plots.

“Nevermind,” Sherlock said tightly. “Margaret lost track of herself for a moment.”

“Mr Holmes is giving me instructions for packing your cases. He says you have medals in your trunk? You’ll need to fetch them out so I can pack them.”

“Oh, now. No need.”

“It’s a formal occasion,” Sherlock intoned.

“Next you’ll have me dragging out my uniform,” John laughed. “No chance I’d be able to stuff myself into it after all this time—Margaret is much too talented a cook.” He gave her a wink and patted his middle.

Sherlock’s imperious, no-nonsense tone returned. “Margaret will pack them and you can decide later.”

“Ah,” John acquiesced, showing his palms in surrender. “Yes, Mr Holmes.”

“Stop that,” Sherlock said. “We’re not downstairs at Stonefield.”

“Oh, but I _was_ there for a moment, when you tipped your chin up just that much.” John teased him, drawing a frown from Sherlock. “Not to worry; it’s part of your special charm.”

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock frowned.

Margaret got to her feet, flipping her notebook shut. She gave John a tight-lipped smile as she passed him. “I’ll get started on the packing,” she said, and in a moment her soft steps could be heard ascending the stairs.

Sherlock’s expression was grumbly though he himself was silent, and John reached for him, patting his shoulder and leaning to plant a quick kiss near his temple.

“Have you still got your uniform?” Sherlock inquired mildly as John drew himself upright.

“I do indeed.”

“But you don’t think you could wear it.”

The corner of John’s lip ticked up. “What are you on about?” he asked with feigned suspicion.

Sherlock waved his elegant hand through the air, erasing the previous few moments. “We should get to the weeding; it won’t be done again for three days.”

“Yes,” John began, and Sherlock gave him a challenging look, daring John to poke fun and suffer the consequences. John finished, “. . .my love.”

 

Their cases were packed and standing at the ready near their bedroom door; John had gone into his locked trunk and left the box containing his five medals atop the pile of his shirts, for Margaret to include. He had spent an hour after breakfast making measurements for an extension on the chickens’ coop, then had a bath. Back in the bedroom he began to dress for their journey into town.

Once he’d donned his small clothes, he patted his hair a bit to soak up the last of the wet left lingering in it. Though he’d fought the urge the previous evening to take out his old uniform from where it lay carefully folded in the trunk, at last he could fight it no more, and so plucked the little key from inside his night-table drawer and unhitched the trunk, propped up the lid, and reached inside.

There was a significant stench of mothballs that made him lean away as he drew out the rectangular bundle of his jacket, tunic, and trousers. Beneath it were his brown boots polished black, and the bandage-like puttees he’d worn spiraled around his calves from ankle to knee were tightly rolled and tucked into the boot-shanks. His leather belt had gone slightly stiff from being so long wound into a loop and tucked away.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, lay the bundled clothes beside him and fingered the buttons etched with his regiment’s crest. Just then there came a familiar triple-knock at the bedroom door.

“Watson, are you quite decent?”

“That’s a matter of much lively discussion in the village,” John replied as Sherlock let himself in and shut the door silently behind him.

“We’ll need to depart in no more than an hour and a quarter, to make the train,” Sherlock told him, drawing out his pocket watch to confirm its compliance.

John stood and smoothed his vest, quickly moving to return the uniform to his still-open trunk.

“You’re wondering whether you’re still fighting fit?” Sherlock’s mouth behaved but his eyebrows gave him away as teasing.

John laughed a bit and gave a shrug. “I suppose so.”

Sherlock stepped forward and lifted the jacket by the shoulders, gently unfurling it and giving it a quick snap to loosen the creases. His eye was critical as he lay it out on the bed and began to unfasten the buttons.

“I’m not putting it on,” John protested.

“Certainly you are,” Sherlock said briskly. He lifted the coat, folded it once, and draped it over his forearm. “Sir’s jacket,” he said, with a dip of his chin.

“Sherlock. . .” John’s neck went hot.

Sherlock circled around behind him and momentarily John surrendered, lowering his hands by his sides in a silent invitation for Sherlock to dress him. With efficient and fluid motions, Sherlock guided the jacket up his arms, settled it into place on John’s shoulders and squared it. He smoothed the flats of his hands outward from the center of John’s back, then circled around once more.

“Before these buttons fail, I just want to say in my own defense that I was practically still a boy, and quite skinny, and the rations we were given left much to be desired.”

“Whatever difference there may be is down to Sir’s naturally more robust figure in manhood,” Sherlock murmured, fussing with the stand-and-fall collar, the cuffs of the jacket. “Shall I fasten it up for you, Sir?”

John looked heavenward, inhaled hard and blew out a sigh. “I dare you to try,” he said with resigned amusement.

Sherlock started at the top, right over the central notch in John’s collarbone, slotting each button into place. By the time they were all fastened, John felt a bit squeezed and doubted he could lift his arms very high without tearing a seam, but every last one was done up and to his surprise as he glanced down, they didn’t even look too terribly strained. Sherlock guided him by the shoulders to turn around and face their tall mirror.

John laughed at the specatacle of himself in striped cotton under-shorts, with bare legs and feet, beneath his khaki uniform coat, but at once he caught sight over his shoulder of Sherlock’s reflected expression; the pale gaze moved quite deliberately down, then up again. Sherlock vanished a moment, ducked into the trunk, and returned with John’s hat perched on one hand, brushing away whatever dust there was on its flat top with the other. Sherlock lifted the cap with both hands and placed it on John’s head, adjusted it so it was perfectly straight.

He let go a little breath of an, “ _ah!”_ as he stepped out from between John and the mirror.

John could feel his own posture had changed, easily finding an old familiar form. He plucked at the flap of one breast pocket, just to feel the fabric between thumb and finger. “We used to cock it to the side a bit,” he said, and somewhat gingerly lifted one hand to rearrange his cap at a rakish angle. A sideways glance found Sherlock standing with his hands clasped behind his back, studying John intensely. “What do you say?” John prompted, and turned slightly to one side, then the other.

“I’ll help Sir with his trousers.”

“Sherlock, I don’t imagine we have time to be playing at fancy dress,” John protested, though the obvious hunger in Sherlock’s eyes, contrasting his otherwise placid face, took most of the wind out of John’s sails.

“Not to worry, Sir,” Sherlock dismissed, and before John could register further objection, he was steadying himself on Sherlock’s shoulder and stepping into his trousers, and then Sherlock slid them up his legs.

Smoothly regaining his feet, Sherlock hitched up John’s trousers to his waist, and one hand rested softly at John’s side while the other slipped in and around from back to front, smoothing his boxers to assure a good line. Cool fingertips brushed feather-light over the skin of John’s thigh, and the lovely pale eyes stared, glittering, into John’s eyes. As Sherlock moved to repeat the motion on the other side, John reached around him, cupped his backside and tried to draw him closer, but Sherlock stood firm as ever, attending to the work of dressing him. John’s mouth came open as Sherlock’s hand brushed toward John’s inner thigh and then slowly dragged up and out through the open button placket, the intimate touch clearly not incidental.

John gusted a whisper. “You beauty.” Sherlock quarter-smiled, looking knowing. “You _villain_ ,” John said then, a trace of whimper in it.

Sherlock ducked to see beneath the edge of the jacket, and began doing up the trouser buttons. John reached for his arm, stroked him a bit.

“Boots,” Sherlock said, and headed for the trunk.

“Not on your life, dear heart.” John shook his head, grimacing. Memories of always-wet, blistered feet came in a flood and he rocked his head to shake them off.

Sherlock already had the boots in hand. He gave John a surprisingly wide-eyed look. “Please, John.”

After another few minutes, John had stepped his bare feet into his boots, and talked Sherlock through his old method for wrapping the puttees and fastening them in place. Sherlock pulled the leather belt through his warm fists, trying to correct the kinks, though it still showed odd creases as it was fitted around John’s middle—John did not look to see which hole the buckle fit into, was merely relieved that any one of them did the job.

Sherlock stepped beside the mirror, and gave John a long look, head to foot and then back again. John reluctantly admired his own reflection.

“So there you have it, my darling,” he said after a moment or two. “Look your fill; I’ve got to get dressed properly or we’ll be late for the train.”

“Will Sir require help undressing?” Sherlock asked, and John glanced at the closed but unlocked bedroom door.

“All the help you can give, and then some,” he replied, with a sly grin.

As Sherlock stepped closer, though, there came a light rap at the door followed by Margaret’s voice.

“Excuse me, Mr Holmes, Mr Watson. Burt Green is here to ask after the task list you’ve got for him while you’re in town.”

Sherlock slumped, his head dropping so low his forehead landed on John’s shoulder. John reached up to give the back of his head a comforting pat, but heard a distressing series of soft popping sounds from one of the jacket’s seams, so dropped his hand away.

“We’ll be there quite quickly, Margaret,” John assured her. “Offer him some tea.”

“Well, naturally I already have,” she replied, sounding mildly affronted. “I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”

John listened for her steps descending the stairs.

“Here, precious, let’s have a kiss at least,” John whispered, and Sherlock obliged, the kiss he offered surprisingly heated, his hands roaming over John’s chest and shoulders, down his back. After a moment John withdrew, gave Sherlock a gentle push at the breastbone with two fingers. “Go deal with Green; I’ll find my way out of this and into my suit and meet you downstairs.”

Sherlock pressed his hand against his chest, as if to hold his pounding heart in its proper place.

 

A few hours later, they were side by side in a private compartment on the train up to London. John would never have thought to splash out for such a luxury, though he imagined Sherlock might have, given his opposition to socialising with any person outside the fence of Willowbrook Farm. In the event, it had been arranged by the Colonel’s widow, whose motivations for such generosity John could only guess at. It was possible she was being kind, though just as likely it had not occurred to her that another class than first even existed. Whatever twist of fate had brought them to the brocade-upholstered, cushioned seats and no need to be courteous to strangers about the placement of their hats, satchels, or knees, John was grateful for it.

Margaret had packed them ham sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, a small jar of pickled peppers, and two green-golden apples John sliced apart with his pocket knife, offering the newly-hewn slivers to Sherlock balanced with his thumb on the flat of the blade. They accepted tea from the cart that came around every twenty minutes, then pulled shut the curtains facing the inside of the carriage and sat back to digest. Sherlock yawned into his handkerchief, and John watched the passing countryside. The sun was shining in a blue sky, an ideal midsummer day.

“Shall I open the window a bit?” John offered.

“No; leave it,” Sherlock replied, folding his handkerchief in half, then in half again. “Young Margaret said something yesterday which I found amusing,” he said then, and folded the handkerchief in thirds, then shifted in his seat to tuck it into his hip pocket.

John turned to him. “Did she really?”

“Surely you’ll be amused, too, to hear she can’t imagine one so gentle and kind as you ever having been a soldier,” Sherlock said.

“Is that so?” John shook his head, smiling. “In peace time, at least, I suppose it’s a compliment to be thought of as _too kind_ for the army.”

“Well. Regardless of what that girl has to say on the subject, I assure you, John—the uniform suits you perfectly,” Sherlock said with that air of finality he often used to settle divergences of opinion by delivering his own, correct one.

“Thank you, indeed.”

Sherlock slipped his pocket watch from his waistcoat, and spoke to it. “A man in uniform—cap and boots—is an unqualified pleasure to behold.” He snapped the watch shut and dropped it back into its place, then fussed with his shirt collar, plucking and stroking with long fingers. “I daresay I saw you in an entirely new light, once you were buttoned into place.”

John turned his head, studied Sherlock’s face with a roaming gaze. His neck was faintly but unmistakably pink above his starched collar.

“Is it too warm? I can open the window.”

“Forget the window, John.”

“It’s just that you look a bit warm.”

“No.”

“What is it, then? Perhaps the effect of the new light you saw me in?” John grinned, teasing.

“The fact is that you _are_ quite kind. And if gentleness can be considered a positive attribute in a man, then you are that, too.” Sherlock’s voice was lower, and he held one hand in the other, cradled both in his lap. “But to see the way your posture changed. And to imagine you on the march, or lined up in formation.”

John’s eyebrows lifted. There was a certain giveaway breathlessness in Sherlock’s speech John was not accustomed to hearing anywhere outside the four walls of their bedroom, and for a long moment he convinced himself he was imagining it. Because Sherlock would never.

But Sherlock carried on—in fact, turned and leaned quite close to John’s ear—and John’s doubt melted.

“I appreciate greatly that I am the blissful and charmed object of all your freely-given compliments. You are so generous with praise, and so unabashedly adoring. . .” he said quietly, and John smiled to hear it. “And god knows you have been a patient and compassionate lover, given my naïveté.”

John felt a flush of warmth across his chest, reminded as he was just then of countless times his compassionate and patient loving had caused Sherlock to sigh and quiver in his embrace.

“You precious thing,” John whispered.

“And of course you’re also rugged, a quality I glimpse when you are working outdoors and the like, and it was that quality I saw this morning. . .that sturdy manliness I admire as much in you as I do your kindness. More than manly.” Sherlock’s hand crept onto John’s leg just above his knee, and worked a slow arc as he spoke, feeling the muscle of John’s thigh. “I could see in you a sort of _brute_.”

He said the word with such desperate awe in his voice, John could easily imagine the way his eyes widened, the devilish smile teasing up the corners of his mouth. Sherlock’s dry lips just brushed the edge of John’s ear, not quite a kiss. His hand moved upward on John’s thigh.

“We’ve sixteen minutes until that girl with the tea cart passes again,” Sherlock said. “Shall I go on?” His hand drifted up the length of John’s thigh and came to rest over the button placket of his trousers, a forceful brushing motion with fingers curling downward. John’s back tensed to straighten him up even as his thighs moved apart to give Sherlock space.

“What’s gotten into you?” John managed in half-hearted protest; whatever it was, in truth John heartily welcomed it.

Sherlock’s breath was warm and faintly damp against John’s ear, his voice velvet-dark and soft. “Did you give orders?”

“Yes, of course.”

Sherlock hummed, and his hand roamed away, gliding firmly down the side of John’s thigh.

“Imagine you _captured_ me,” Sherlock breathed, sounding unmistakably thrilled at the notion.

John could not tamp down his shock, and even scolded him. “ _Sherlock_.”

“Rough-rushing me past your men, hands behind my back, shoving me, growling and barking.” The clutch of his fingers at the side of John’s neck, and Sherlock turned John’s face, stole a fierce kiss. “You’d order me to undress, watch me so closely, and I would blush and burn with shame but then I would see how my nakedness aroused you, and it would make me bold. I would rush to bare myself for you.”

John let out a shuddering, four-part breath, and reached for Sherlock’s hand on his thigh, grasping it tight. Sherlock nuzzled against the side of his face, kissed the tail of his eyebrow and then the lobe of his ear.

“Looking me up and down with your hungry eyes,” Sherlock mused. “And I would want to please you, of course I would, but with so many other eyes on me—”

 _“Hm?”_ John had not expected that particular turn, and was taken by a storm of thrilled curiosity. Sherlock rubbed him through his trousers once more, solid chest heaving against John’s upper arm, taut thigh pressed against John’s own as they sat side by side. John ventured a glance out the window across wide open space, a few houses dotting the farmland, not near enough for anyone to see them of course, but John felt hectic over it nonetheless, and shut his eyes.

“Your men—watching—their faces full of desire and shame,” Sherlock whispered raggedly. “Imagine you set me on my knees, held my head, my mouth seeking the open front of your trousers.”

John cursed, and Sherlock affirmed it.

“The metal buttons on your uniform biting cold against the skin of my face.” The motion of his hand frustrated by John’s layers of clothing was a dissatisfying tease, and John moved against him, swept along on the wave of Sherlock’s fervid daydream even as he worried they could be stumbled upon, interrupted, found out. A few more rough strokes and Sherlock rearranged himself, angling both hands to open John’s trousers-front. John pressed clenched fists against the brocade seat cushion, let go a dismayed noise from high in his throat.

Sherlock’s fingers slipping into his small clothes, barely brushing his skin and hair, finding him firm with desire, made John draw an overloud gasp Sherlock silenced with a kiss.

“Imagine me against your back, with my arms wrapped around you, one sliding in between the buttons of your coat to feel your hard chest and the other. . .” Sherlock raised his palm to his mouth, wet it with his tongue, then thrust it back down. “. . .curled around like so, to bring you along.”

“Sherlock. . .my own. . .” John whispered, and let his head drop back against the top of the seat cushion. The rattle of the rails sounded loud and urgent in his ears, and the vibration of the carriage multiplied the shiver in his legs; he ground his feet firmly against the floor and pressed his knees wider apart.

“All my bare skin against the wool of your coat and trousers, how I would lose every sense of decorum as they watched me please you, a slave to my own pleasure as I rocked and pressed myself against your back. . .” An open-mouthed kiss sucked at the side of John’s throat, and Sherlock hummed hard through closed lips into the soft hollow there.

John could envision it—Sherlock surrounding him from behind, his long pale arms—could feel it—his lean body straining at John’s back—and all at once John was desperate, his hand gripping hard at Sherlock’s knee to steady them both. Sherlock’s breath beside his ear came heavy with soft moans.

“Those men. . .watching. . .”

“I— _Oh_. . .oh, my darling. . .”

John curled forward, reaching up and around to touch the back of Sherlock’s neck and pull him close, huffing wild breaths into his hair, biting back a groan. Sherlock, ever mindful, directed John to spend himself onto the floor of the compartment, saving them both the potential embarrassment of an inexcusable stain.

After his crisis had passed with a deep shiver, John partially righted his trousers even as he appeased Sherlock’s desire to be handled roughly—gripping his thigh and pressing his shoulder to persuade him into place—and in moments Sherlock was reclining, limbs sprawled invitingly, and John was bent so far at the waist his belly touched the seat cushion as he made quick work of Sherlock’s trouser buttons.

Sherlock was rampant as ever he had been, hot and stiff between John’s wetted lips, salt-and-bitter on John’s tongue, and he pressed his half-unfolded handkerchief to tight-shut lips, stifling whines. His breath gusted, animal-like, through his nostrils. John held him hard at hip and calf, and though he’d have normally taken time to tease Sherlock half-mad, he imagined he could hear the tick of Sherlock’s pocket watch reminding them by the second that there would soon come a rap at the unbolted door. He did all he knew to bring Sherlock along quick as he could, and sure enough, in mere moments Sherlock’s hips rocked up and then dropped back so John had to give chase in order to contain the warm flood over his tongue, in the hollow of his cheek. Sherlock hummed in a pitch so high it sounded like nothing so much as utter distress.

They hurried to right themselves, not speaking but sharing smiles, John’s wide-eyed and wonderstruck, Sherlock’s satisfied and decidedly mellow. John swiped at what was left on the floor with the sole of his shoe, an action which drew a singular, short burst of a laugh from Sherlock. Clearing his throat, John regained his seat on the bench beside Sherlock, leaning close with a hand on his knee.

“You endlessly surprise me, my own one,” he murmured, littering soft kisses down the side of Sherlock’s face between phrases. “In all our days and nights together I’ve never heard such bawdy talk.”

Sherlock hummed and tilted his chin, offering his neck to be kissed, and John obliged. Sherlock’s hand found his and held it as they indulged in nuzzling close, kissing softly with lips and nose-tips and fluttered eyelashes, returning to their familiar roost of sweet and gentle, mutual admiration.

“You prize,” John whispered.

“You’re not shocked,” Sherlock prompted, his tone ever-so-slightly revealing his vulnerability in light of having so boldly shared his rough-and-ready daydream.

“I can’t be shocked,” John replied softly, and kissed him. “You should know by now I can’t be. On the contrary, you’ve delighted me.”

“Oh?”

“Unexplored land beyond the horizon,” John told him. “And we can explore it together. If you like.”

 _“Mm,”_ Sherlock affirmed, and stroked the backs of John’s fingers, their hands still clasped on Sherlock’s thigh. “Indeed, conquer it.”

John chuckled a bit. “Ah, but you are a treasure. I am the luckiest man alive.”

There came the soft rap at the glass of the door, and they straightened their posture. John stood and rested his hand on the latch, inhaled deeply to ground himself.

“Good afternoon,” he grinned at the tea-girl.

“Tea, sir?”

“Please,” John replied, the added, “My companion and I certainly appreciate your timeliness.”

Sherlock stifled a chortle with his handkerchief.

 

“Oh, Holmes, despite the reason for your visit, it is good to see you.”

“And you as well, Madam.”

“You must call me Mrs A—. You don’t work for me anymore.”

“I couldn’t possibly. But. Thank you for the gesture. My deepest condolences on the loss of your husband. The Colonel was a fine man of excellent character.”

“I appreciate you saying so.”

“It was his wish for me to dress him this final time?”

“It seems only fitting, Holmes, don’t you think? After so many years. And he was never happy with Pensler, ever since we moved to town. I think the Colonel always hoped you’d come to work for us here in London.”

_“Hm.”_

“The mortician will be with you, of course. I’ve chosen a necktie but I’ll leave the rest to you; you know what he liked.”

“Of course, Madam.”

“Are you sure you won’t call me Mrs A—? Oh, nevermind. . .I understand. Regardless, I hope you know I do consider you a friend. Forgive me—I haven’t even inquired about your health? And do things go well on your farm?”

“Very well, thank you. On both counts.”

“I think I should like to pay you a visit there, sometime, for tea, if it wouldn’t be imposing.”

“Not at all, Madam. It would be our honour.”

“Something to look forward to. . .I can’t thank you enough, Holmes.”

“Also an honour. I assure you the Colonel is in careful hands.”

“Of course he is. Of course he is.”

 

Their hostess had made arrangements for Sherlock and John to be accommodated in the upstairs rooms of a nearby house with a landlady called Mrs Hudson who brought them tea and promised breakfast the next morning, but insisted they find their own supper. They’d found a club with a dining room open to non-members and John let Sherlock order for them both—a stew of beef and potato with rich gravy, and thick-crusted brown bread. There was only coffee for after—Sherlock would not hear of adding the cost of a pudding to their bill, which he already thought an outrageous sum to pay for a meal—and Sherlock looked thoughtful as he sipped and then set the cup back into place on its saucer.

“You’re all right?” John inquired in a low voice. They were nearly the only occupants of the room—one other pair of gents sat at some distance from their table, by the big fireplace, smoking pipes and trading stories. “You seem a bit broody since we left Mrs A—’s house this afternoon.”

Sherlock hummed, frowning. He kept his gaze downcast, and his reply came so quietly John had to lean closer to hear him. “As I was arranging the Colonel’s suit, there with the mortician in his bedroom—he supported the Colonel’s limbs while I dressed him—all I could think was that one day, it would be one of us dressing the other for his final rest.”

“Oh, now,” John soothed, and he ached to take Sherlock’s hand in his, but kept one on the handle of his cup and the other on his own knee beneath the table.

“And I find I cannot bear the thought, either way. When I think of having to be the one to button up your jacket that last time. . .” Sherlock looked up then, his expression forlorn.

“Shh. . .” John whispered, wanting desperately to comfort him.

“But to think of you left behind. I imagine you would feel no small amount of grief, John, in that case. . .” Sherlock always reverted to distancing phrases when things became too close for comfort.

“Indeed, I will be utterly mad with grief if I must outlive you,” John affirmed.

“Neither way is acceptable,” Sherlock said, and his lips tightened and his brow was set in a way that was familiar to John—the disapproving expression he’d worn back at Stonefield when there was dust on the mantelpieces, or when the young maids got too giggly at supper.

“In that case, we go together,” John told him, and half-smiled to lift the weight of the moment. “When we feel our time is upon us, we’ll sit in our armchairs in the drawing room and you’ll get out your watch. We’ll take each other’s hands, and we’ll say our goodbyes, and then at the appointed moment—when the second hand hits the twelve—we’ll close our eyes and that will be the end.”

Sherlock shook his head at the ridiculousness of the scenario, mildly smiling.

“Then no one is left behind, alone,” John summed up. “You have to admit it’s a sound plan.”

“How long do you think we have?” Sherlock asked, and it started out playful but ended on a melancholy note, sad and hopeful at once.

“Oh, ages,” John told him. “The world couldn’t possibly be so cruel to make me wait so long to find you, only to take you from me before we’ve had our share of life.”

Sherlock nodded, his gaze fixed downward but his mood at least partially mended.

“I believe you’re probably correct on that account,” he said.

“Of course I’m right. We’ve years to go before we’re through. Maybe we’ll the first two men to live forever.”

Sherlock gave him a soft smile. “Perhaps we will.”

 

Next morning, John pinned a small buttonhole of oak leaf and heather to Sherlock’s lapel, and Sherlock helped pin John’s medals onto his jacket. The Colonel wore a suit that was not his best, but his favourite, very smart despite being wool instead of silk, and a chest-full of his own medals. The rosebud buttonhole John had tied up for him included an ivory button from the gloves his widow had worn at their wedding. The mourners agreed he looked hearty and handsome—nearly alive, as if he might only be sleeping—and that the bouquets of flowers were beautiful and fragrant, a fitting tribute to so great a man. Once his coffin had been lowered and the dirt tossed over it, Sherlock and John gave final condolences to the grieving family and made their farewells, then returned to their rented rooms to pack their cases for the journey south.

“It will be a great relief to be home,” Sherlock commented, as they settled into their private train compartment. “London is detestable.”

“It’s not so terribly bad,” John said mildly.

“It was made tolerable only by your company,” Sherlock said with finality—the quality of London life was not a topic he considered worthy of debate.

John shut the door and pulled the curtains, then took his seat beside Sherlock. He ventured to lay a hand on Sherlock’s knee, and met no protest; Sherlock even let his own hand rest over John’s.

“Wherever we are together,” John told him, “that’s what I consider home.”

Sherlock inhaled long and deep, and his shoulders relaxed downward as he released the breath.

John turned over his hand beneath Sherlock’s and curled his fingers around to hold it properly. “But I agree, it’s always best at Willowbrook.”

Sherlock only nodded softly. The train was gaining speed, gently rocking, the clack and hum a sort of soothing background music. John noticed that Sherlock’s hand felt loose and soft in his own, and that his eyes closed for longer than it took to blink.

“Go ahead and rest, my own one,” John encouraged, leaning close to whisper into the hair by his ear. “You know I’ll be here.”

 


End file.
